Day 10 Beyond Layers II and Texture Tuesday

Trying to keep up with Beyond Layers II is keeping me up!

Kim had a great little tutorial using one of her textures called "Subtly Yours".  I'm having to break an old habit I learned -- "fill the frame" when taking photos.  Now that I have a grown-up camera and I'm wanting to have grown-up photos, I realize that I want to have more open space in my photos.....particularly when I want to add text.

I did crop this image which left me 

with less space but I think I like it better than the original.

Happy Easter everyone.

and then I added some more text, this time doing the text on a path technique Kim taught us.

Click on the button here to see more Texture Tuesday entries.  Have a great week everyone.

Photo Art Friday - Mar 22

I always enjoy seeing what everyone posts for Photo Art Friday.  
Bonnie always encourages the "strange" and abstract.  This makes
 it interesting......never boring!

Last week the theme was "portrait".  This week the theme is "self portrait".  I really like what Bonnie did with her self portrait, so I ventured into the "weird".

First the original.  Thank goodness I did not delete this.  It's really not a great photo but with Photoshop, we can do all kinds of things, right?

I cropped it and did a few variations.....

This next one uses Bonnie's "Backlight" texture and a gradient.

Hopefully you can decipher the screen shot of my 

processing below.

See you all at the linky party.  You know what to do......just click on the button below.

Texture Tuesday - March 19

Kim has asked us to use one layer of one of her textures and add text to our image.

This is actually Kim's image that we used in our Beyond Layers class.  I added her "desert" texture from her "Cloth and Paper" collection.  I like the grungy look, so I did not erase any of the texture.  I couldn't resist the text.....it just seemed to go with the photo.  The font is "Rough Typewriter".

Until next week......

Playing with Dolls

Gourd dolls, that is.......

I've joined a wonderful group of artists that meets once per month.  We are calling our group East Side Art.  Each month we take turns 

hosting the group and facilitating a "class".  Last month Jacki share her talent for torn paper collage.  Unfortunately I didn't take pics, but we all had a great time.

This month Norma taught the class.  She really went the extra mile.  We had all agreed that we would take our lunches to our get-togethers, but Norma made a huge pot of tortilla soup with all the trimmings.  In the morning we had tea/coffee with some sweet rolls.  She had set up two huge double-wide tables under awnings.  There was more than enough space for each of us to spread out  all our supplies.  We each were given a gourd doll blank and a plastic bag of accessories and miscellaneous supplies.  Here Norma is showing us choices of fabrics we could use.  Just look at those gorgeous dolls which are just a smidgen of her glorious collection.

  

 Here's Erin's finished doll in her inimitable style of florals.  

 and here we are at the table....

Here are Linda and Libby about half finished with theirs.

And here are four of our lovelies at the end of the class.

A grand time was had by all!!

Surprise......a recipe!

For a little something different today, I'm sharing one of my favorite recipes.  It's actually a healthier (I think) adaptation of Bob Greene's recipe in his book "Get with the Program!

Guide to Good Eating".  His recipe is not wheat-free, and he uses canola oil instead of coconut oil.   If you can find gluten-free oat bran, then the recipe would be gluten-free.  I've made it so many times that I tweak it almost every time.  These muffins are great for a quick breakfast.  I use coconut oil for a spread rather than butter or jam.  

WHEAT-FREE OAT BRAN MUFFINS

2C    oat bran

1C    buttermilk

4T    melted coconut oil

2      eggs (room temp)

1/4C maple sugar crystals

1/4C molasses
1/2 tsp  vanilla
1   tsp  ground cinnamon

1/2C almond meal

1/2C gluten-free flour of your choice 

          (I use Cup 4 Cup, but Trader Joe’s now has a gluten-free flour)

1tsp  baking soda

1/4tsp salt

1       small carrot, grated

1       small zucchini, grated

1/2    ripe banana, mashed

1/2C  walnut pieces chopped and lightly toasted

1/2C  dried fruit (I use tart cherries and apricots)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.  Spray a 12 cup nonstick muffin tin with cooking spray.

In a large bowl combine bran, buttermilk, coconut oil, eggs, maple sugar crystals, vanilla, cinnamon and molasses.  

In a separate bowl, mix together flour and almond meal, baking soda and salt. 

Add flour mixture to bran mixture.  

Stir in carrot, zucchini, banana, walnuts and dried fruit.

Fill muffin cups to top (they don’t rise) - for a large muffin tin, the recipe will fill 12 cups. 

Bake 15 to 20 minutes, or until a fork inserted in center comes out clean. 

Enjoy with a cuppa your favorite beverage.  I like Trader Joe’s  Ruby Red Chai tea.

Enjoy!

Photo Art Friday - March 14

This week's exercise is "portrait"......any way we wish to interpret it.  I'm still learning to take pictures of myself.  This is one 

of my first.  I processed it in Topaz Adjust for 

the highly contrasted image.  I used the cutout filter to make it 

a bit more posterish in the next image.  I wish it were that easy to color my hair!!

The bottom is the original photo SOOC.

I could play with this a lot more.  It's a fun exercise.

Be sure and hop over to Bonnie's place to 

view lots more interpretations of "portrait".

Texture Tuesday - March 11

I used one of Kim's Photoshop recipes.  I used the one for the daisies and 
changed a couple settings to fit my image.

The font is "Sweetly Broken".  This week we had no particular theme......just free and easy. 

My dad gave this vase to my mom many years ago.  It is Baccarat crystal and very heavy. Its four sides are in a diamond shape.....pure simplicity. I've always loved it.

Week 6 - From Above

Every year I take my oldest granddaughter for tea for her birthday. We started when she was just a small child.  

This year she is in her first year of college and so was not home for her birthday.  She is home for spring break, so we went Monday

We've tried many places.  This year we went to Paris in a Cup, a more sophisticated venue.  Most tea rooms are fashioned after the British version....lots of vintage looking furniture and antique teapots.  This shop is  decorated in all things Parisian

Three of these shots were "from above". 

I like seeing my reflection in the domed silver sugar container.  I used two layers of Kim's "Sybil" on the bottom right image.  I 

used "Aurora" and "Return" on the lower left image.   The others and the images that follow are SOOC.
A look around the interior.....

  

A look in the powder room.....

The two of us and a beautiful lamp in the main room....

And the view from the street.

See you soon.

Photo Art Friday - March 7

A real quickie for Friday.  We were to make an abstract piece of art out of several images and texture(s).  I used Bonnie's "Chinks of Light".  It's one of my favorites.

First, the images I used......

After some tweaking and layering, adding texture and changing blends, the finished piece.

So.......it is true when we say "everyone's an artist"!

Linking to

More Week 5 and Texture Tuesday

I promised to post some images from my shoot where I was trying to find a window in my house that would give me some soft light.

Then I was experiencing some difficulties with Lightroom.  

I think I finally have all of that taken care of.  So here are three images I edited in Lightroom, then sent to PSE for final touches including textures and text.  I'm beginning to feel a little bit more "grown up" with Lightroom.  Notice I said a little bit more.  I find Lightroom a challenging program to get comfortable with.

In each photo I used a different texture all courtesy 

of Kim Klassen.

 Cora

 Sybil

Edith

And one last image......

Mary over BW

I'm beginning to fall in love with Lightroom.  I just added a Lightroom BW preset plus vignette before the Mary texture.

Since next week's Texture Tuesday is "Easy Peasy"- just use one of Kim's textures, I'll be linking this post unless I come up 

with some fabulous new concoction  between now and then.
Click on the button below to see all this week's entries for Texture Tuesday.